


Coffee Clouds

by phantomreviewer



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: (off stage), Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Non-Graphic Violence, Oblivious Grantaire, Smitten Enjolras, Ugly!Grantaire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 02:30:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3191948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomreviewer/pseuds/phantomreviewer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not that Grantaire frequents the café or anything, he has a life that doesn’t revolve around aesthetically pleasing strangers in coffee shops.</p>
<p>It all started when Grantaire wanted a cup of coffee. Strangely that's how it ended as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> Had I really not written a coffee shop AU? I needed to rectify this at once.

The first cup of coffee came to Grantaire as a surprise. He’s just got that he’d like a regular coffee out when a mug is placed down before him. He blinks suddenly, impressed by the quick service.

"The man before you asked for soy milk,” says the barista, shrugging, as though he always made coffee orders appear from thin air, “and I made it with regular milk. It’s coming out of my wages anyway, so if you want it instead?”

It’s slightly too early for Grantaire to compute what had happened, so he smiles in a manner that he hopes come off as charming – but he’s been told more than once that his smiles can sometimes make his face look a little _weird_ , so there’s no great hope of that- and takes the coffee. The barista refuses his card, and there’s something not right about getting so lucky so early in the morning.

He nurses his coffee instead. The barista doesn’t fluff another coffee order in the thirty-five minutes that Grantaire manages to stretch out his coffee over. He looks back over his shoulder automatically when he leaves and the barista is sweeping his blond curls up into a loose bun on the top of his head, looking like the calm between the storm – Grantaire holds the door open for a mother with a buggy, and he watches the man steel his expression into a sort of grimacing smile. He never sees the barista make a coffee wrong again, not that he frequents the café or anything, he has a life that doesn’t revolve around aesthetically pleasing strangers in coffee shops. It had probably been his first shift, the soy milk costumer his first ever costumer, so a singular stumble before settling into the swing of it.

The coffee shop becomes a regular haunt. It doesn’t happen consciously, but Grantaire likes the satisfaction of routine, and it’s well placed and well hidden, and he prides himself on knowing the best places to eat and drink in the city. More than once he’s been woken up by friends in the middle of the night asking for the location of ‘that awesome 24 hours falafel shop’ or ‘that cocktail restaurant with the icecreams’, sometimes he thinks his friends only want him for his local knowledge. He’s keeping the coffee shop to himself though. He isn’t sure why.

The cute barista, who normally scowls through his shift, is beaming widely at Grantaire. He must have gone through some sort of front-of-house training, must have been told to smile more at his costumers, to be more friendly, to look more welcoming in the cooperate environment. Grantaire knows the kind of speeches they give, when he worked in sales they were often accompanied by being told to stick to the backroom and sort out stock, because while he was a people person, people didn’t always like him from first impressions alone. The barista’s smile seems genuine though, which is impressive for this sort of affair, and Grantaire was going to spark up a conversation with him, about anything, he’s a people person, and the barista is one of the finest examples of people that he’s met in a long while, when the woman behind him coughs. Grantaire can take a hint and trots off to the table that has become  _his_ to read the news on his phone and wait for his tea to cool down.

It seems like the barista’s charm has all been used up on one wide, honest, open smile to Grantaire through, as Grantaire notes that he’s back to frowning as he makes up a skinny latte for the businesswoman who was behind him.

He’s systematically worked through every variant of hot drink except the iced teas by three weeks of frequenting his coffee shop, and Grantaire hates to think how much he’s spent. Normally the various baristas let him wave away keeping his receipt, but today it’s the cute guy again, and he’s oddly insistent that Grantaire should take the slip of paper, he’d even folded it to draw attention to the run of text at the bottom.  _Today your server has been Enjolras_ ,  _please fill in our online survey if you have enjoyed your visit_ .

There’s clearly been some sort of push to get better online reviews, it is a niche café after all, and it must be good for business having individual baristas and members of staff exulted as fine upstanding workers by members of the public. If Grantaire is honest with himself he’s probably not going to leave them a review online, but at least he now knows the cute guy’s name. Grantaire doesn’t normally fantasise about people off the street, especially not serving staff whose job it is to be nice to him and act like they’re his friend. He used to be a bit of a dick when he was younger, he’d got kicked out of his fair share of bars for coming onto the bar staff when they were just trying to work, he’s learnt his lesson, well, he tries. But still, it’s nice to pretend sometimes, that someone could just  _want_ him, and it’s good to have a name to pretend to.

Valentine’s Day rolls around, wet and cold and Grantaire doesn’t have a date. Obviously. He’s given himself a couple of hours though, before he and Éponine  go and get belligerently drunk about the state of the world, to people watch. This was a bad plan, there are couples, and throuples and any other alignment of happy people out in the world. Not that be begrudges strangers their happiness, but it would be nice if he had something like it. Why he’d thought that the coffee shop was the place to go today, he doesn’t know,  but he’s in a in a terrible mood by the time he’s sat down with his coffee, black, he doesn’t feel like anything extravagant. His mood it isn’t helped by the fact that isn’t Enjolras at the till – which is ridiculous.

He’s plugged himself into his laptop, headphones on, and he’s lost to trolling the internet, when a tray is pushed into his line of vision – the latte has a heart drawn in the foam with chocolate and the cake is red velvet – and when he looks up it’s to see the back of a blond head, and he’s suddenly angrily embarrassed. Sitting alone on Valentine’s Day is a pathetic sight, and it probably looks like he’s been stood up, and that’s just perfect.

He doesn’t need pity, not from him.

Enjolras doesn’t look at him, and there’s a catch in Grantaire’s throat when he leaves.

It’s been a long day, and he’s only grateful that the coffee shop is still open. There’s no reason that t shouldn’t be open, it’s not that late, but Grantaire’s been up for over forty-eight hours, and he isn’t sure that he could accurately tell up from down, let alone the time.

He knows what he must look like; hair wild, port-wine stained jaw line highlighting the plummy bruise over his eye. His knuckles are red and there’s a gash over one eye, he looks like even more of a state than normal and he just wants somewhere to lay down his head. But even he knows that he needs to run off something more than adrenalin and vodka.

He could have gone anywhere, but it’s comforting here. He’s stated spending more time in this shop than in the library, his own little furnished flat is hardly being used as anything more than a storage unit these days.

There’s no one at the counter when he gets there, but he doesn’t mind waiting, leaning his weight n the till as much to keep himself upright as it is to get attention from someone in the back room. It gets the attention of the few people still in the shop, who obviously think that he’s about to start a fight, he doesn’t have the energy for that.

It’s maybe close to closing time, but if he can have something to go, and something hot to eat then he’d be happy. Then he could go home and rest.

Of course it’s Enjolras who ducks out, looking as perfect as ever, and maybe Grantaire did take a knock on the head, because he’s not sure if he’s said those words aloud. But Enjolras eyes only widen when he looks Grantaire’s face up and down, so hopefully he kept his words to himself. There’s a paper bag in Enjolras’ hand, and he’s not wearing his apron, so he’s obviously not on duty.

“Cosette will be out in a moment to serve you, but here, take this,” Enjolras looks shaken as he pushes the paper bag towards Grantaire, “”A customer walked out before his toastie was cooked. You look like you need it.”

And with that  Enjolras is gone, Grantaire can’t quite work out how he ducked under the counter too transfixed by the paper bag in his hands, and Cosette is standing there, bright as the dawn, and smiling at him.

Grantaire likes Cosette. He likes to practice his Korean with her when he’s feeling more like himself, and she’s than happy to talk with him – or if she isn’t then she’s too polite to ask him to stop. Grantaire doubts that’s the case though, Cosette is authoritative and knows herself, she once threw out a man twice her size for making lewd comments about another costumer once, so Grantaire thinks that she’s must be happy with his company, but he’s too tired to work around a foreign tongue today, which he feels a flicker of guilt at, but she just smiles at him and makes his medium a large.

When he’s on the bus, finally, finally going home he notes that the café doesn’t actually sell cheese and mushroom toasties.

Grantaire’s face doesn’t hurt as much by the next week, and he’s more embarrassed than shaken by the whole experience. It’s raining , and the coffee shop is emptier than he’s ever known it to be.

Technically Grantaire could be doing his work in the library, should be working in the library, but there’s something comforting about this particular seat. Watching the raindrops run down the window warms his soul- part of him wants to trace their patterns down the glass, but then he remembers that as a twenty seven year old man that sort of thing is frowned upon, seeing the people dash around in the rain gives its own sort of happiness. Not because of their wet misery, not necessarily, but watching life go by is deeply satisfying.

There are few other people dropping in and out for a panini and a coffee, and more than a few of them have shaken off their umbrellas when stepping into the warmth.

Grantaire is the only costumer left, still drinking his chili hot chocolate, when Enjolras leaves the counter after the last of this suit-clad, umbrella bearing businessmen had taken their expresso to go, and took up the cloth to dry down the damp table tops.

He keeps looking over at Grantaire, once could be expected, twice could perhaps be accidental, but four times is enough to be noticeable. Not that Grantaire has been watching Enjolras work, especially not watching him bend over the tables as he cleans then, but well, he’s beautiful and Grantaire likes to watch beautiful things.

“Do you need me to move?” Grantaire says and he can’t work out quite why his voice broke on the last word. He’s not spoken to many people that day, preferring to watch them then talk to them, but that still doesn’t explain the strange thump in his chest.

Enjolras throws down the cloth onto the table he’s been drying, frowning, and if he’d wanted Grantaire to move then he should have just said so.

“It always works in films.”

And it’s such a non sequitur that Grantaire laughs, he doesn’t like the sound of his own laugh, it suits his face, brash and harsh, but Enjolras smiles, tightly, as though its being forced out of him unwillingly.

“Excuse me?” Grantaire says, the knot loosening, and it’s not that he normally gets embarrassed when talking to people, after all, he loves people, but there’s something about Enjolras.

Enjolras who is pouting, and awkwardly folding his fingers this way and that, as though he wasn’t sure of his words. And Grantaire can’t say that he knows Enjolras well, but he’s seen him deal with all number of customers, and he’s never so much as hesitated before. Immediately his mind leaps to the fact that Enjolras wants him gone, but he’s learning to ignore that voice in his head, and stays, sitting, waiting for Enjolras to speak.

“There’s a reason I never do this sort of thing, positive body language, gifts, smiling at you, you know,  _flirting_ .”

The past months flicker into realignment.

Oh.  _Oh_ . “Oh.”

Enjolras isn’t looking at him, but Grantaire can’t look away from his face.

“I thought you might be straight, which is fine, I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable, but you’re here and you’re  _you_ and I’m notoriously bad at this kind of thing, all my friends say so, but I just wanted to, try.” His voice goes very quiet on the last word, and Grantaire knows that his face goes expressionless – some have said gormless- when he’s thinking, so his face is blank to Enjolras’ panic. He feels guilty about that as well, even as the idea of hope begins to well up in his chest.

“No, no. I’m not uncomfortable,” he says, but Enjolras still looks downtrodden, before Grantaire’s mind hastily catches up with his tongue, “and I’m not straight either, well, not exclusively.”

Enjolras doesn’t quite beam at him, but he is smiling again, and Grantaire doesn’t really feel like he should be sitting down for this conversation, but it would be too awkward to stand up now.

He coughs once, and Enjolras’ eyes flicker to his immediately.

“Enjolras, can I take you out sometime?”

And then the smile breaks over Enjolras’ face, and he looks more radiant than ever. He nods, pursing his lips together as thought to keep the happiness in. He sits himself down opposite Grantaire at his table and reaches halfway to Grantaire’s hands, he stops and Grantaire covers the distance with his own, cumbersome fingers. Enjolras twists his hands over to interlace their fingers and then honest to god, giggles.

“I know a great place that does coffee.”

Grantaire squeezes his fingers and laughs too.


End file.
